Automatic detection of multisize pulmonary nodules in CT images: Large-scale validation of the false-positive reduction step.

Purpose: Currently reported computer-aided detection (CAD) approaches face difficulties in identifying the diverse pulmonary nodules in thoracic computed tomography (CT) images, especially in heterogeneous datasets. We present a novel CAD system specifically designed to identify multisize nodule candidates in multiple heterogeneous datasets.

Methods: The proposed CAD scheme is divided into two phases: primary phase and final phase.